Channeling environmentalism into climate policy: an experimental study of Fridays for Future participants from Germany

Abstract

This study argues that scholars and policy-makers need to understand environmental activists better to bridge the gap between growing activism and policy. Conventional wisdom is that environmental activists generally support stronger climate policies. But there is still little understanding about diversity of views within activist groups when it comes to specific policies, and existing studies indicate that their views are not uniform, which can weaken their impact as a group. Activists might unite to demand change, but not necessarily agree on details of the desired change. Exploring the differences within the group, this paper focuses on how to nudge those who already share favorable attitudes towards policies that mitigate climate change. The motivation has been to see, in presence of general support for stronger environmental policies, whether this support could be channeled into more specific policies. We first take on a methodological challenge to construct an index of environmental predisposition. Then drawing from existing social-behavioral scholarship, we analyze results of an experimental survey with select treatments previously reported as promising. In November and December 2019, we collected responses from 119 participants at the Fridays for Future demonstrations in Germany. The results indicate that there are indeed important differences within the group, and nudging effects exist even in this rather strongly predisposed group, with participants assigned to the experimental group showing higher levels of support for the introduction of a carbon tax that is traditionally seen as a difficult policy to gain widespread public support. We find that those who score neither too high nor too low are more likely to respond to nudging. Yet, the effects vary for general outcomes such as policy support, behavioral intentions, and environmental citizenship. Overall, the findings show the value of understanding the heterogeneity of individual views within environmental movements better and directing interventions in large resource systems such as climate to specific issues and target groups for accelerating transformations towards sustainability.

Free-Riding for Future: Field Experimental Evidence of Strategic Substitutability in Climate Protest

“…Second, we also contribute to a recent stream of literature investigating the motivational (preferences and beliefs) structure underlying climate protest participation. Climate protesters tend to be instrumentally (i. e. to attain a change of public policy) motivated (de Moor et al, 2020;Cologna et al, 2021), although there is regional and individual heterogeneity about advocated means (Beer, 2020;Svensson and Wahlström, 2021;Huttunen, 2021;Soliev et al, 2021), but there is also a strong affectiveemotional basis, revolving around feelings of worry, anxiety, frustration, and anger (Wahlström et al, 2019;de Moor et al, 2020), and a perceived moral duty to act (Fernandes-Jesus et al, 2020;Wallis and Loy, 2021). Social expression and self-signaling, identification, and event enjoyment also play a role (Walgrave et al, 2012;Fernandes-Jesus et al, 2020;Wallis and Loy, 2021;Cologna et al, 2021).…”

A new generation of consumers? A study on the pro-environmental behavior of the Fridays for Future generation based on the social identity approach

“…It could be shown that older people demonstrate out of solidarity, while the younger generation takes to the streets for their own interests (Wahlström et al, 2019;Gardner and Neuber, 2021). Also, feelings such as fear, concern and anger (Wahlström et al, 2019;Gardner and Neuber, 2021), but also hope (Gardner and Neuber, 2021), fun (Cologna et al, 2021), the perceived activism of the social environment (Wallis and Loy, 2021) and political orientation (Cologna et al, 2021;Soliev et al, 2021;Svensson and Wahlström, 2021), as well as social self-efficacy (Cologna et al, 2021;Wallis and Loy, 2021) and efficacy on a collective level (Wallis and Loy, 2021), could be identified as motives and predictors, although the results on efficacy are not clear (Prendergast et al, 2021). However, while protesters have faith in science (Cologna et al, 2021), they express a certain skepticism toward both companies and governments about their ability and willingness to tackle the climate crisis (Wahlström et al, 2019;de Moor et al, 2020;Cologna et al, 2021;Mundaca et al, 2022;Noth and Tonzer, 2022).…”